As members of the SPUSA Faith and Socialism Commission, we put forward the following statement regarding the Israeli attack upon The Spirit of Humanity, a Gaza-bound humanitarian vessel:
We condemn this latest act of aggression by the state of Israel. This humanitarian flotilla was a response to the deteriorating conditions of Gaza and its civilian residents as they have been under a military blockade which is now spanning three years – depriving Palestinians of food, water, medical supplies, and essential building materials.
We call for an immediate end to the 43 year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, during which Israel has repeatedly and blatantly violated the laws of the Geneva Convention by committing numerous acts of lethal and non-lethal ethnic cleansing; hoarding of resources and colonization of occupied land with distinction to both ethnicity and religion; not only failed to protect noncombatants but actively sought to harm them through collective punishment measures (which are defined as war crimes); and detained and publicly humiliated hostages. These violations are internationally recognized war crimes which should be tried at the International Court of Justice.
We invoke the religious precepts, common to all of the world’s faiths, of compassion and solidarity with the weak and the oppressed. The primary lesson of these traditions is the ultimate unity of humanity, and it is a perverse irony that, in the name of religion, people are divided and blood is shed.
We demand an immediate end to the blockade and a cessation of military aggression against civilians. However, we recognize that petitions for greater decorum on the part of Israel are not sufficient. Israel’s status as a Zionist state, promoting the welfare and interests of one particular internal group (the Jewish people) over all others, determines its aggressive and divisive nature. While every capitalist state is an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another; a religious state imposes a second layer of division and marginalization. As such, we call for the creation of a single, democratic, socialist and secular state in all of the land collectively recognized as the state of Israel and occupied territories which respects the rights and welfare of all of its populace equally. Finally, as Americans and, in accordance with the position of the SPUSA, we call for an immediate end to all economic and military aid on the part of the United States government to Israel.
Members of the SPUSA Faith and Socialism Commission
The story of Genesis has always been a site of contestation. In many ways, the biblical account of creation frames one’s understanding of the rest of Scripture and, more than this, gives shape and direction to those faiths which look to the Bible for their spiritual nourishment. On the other hand, it is true that the creation story has often dismayed the modern reader. Let me be unambiguous here. The account in Genesis I does not accord with what modern science tells us about how the known universe was created. Nor does semantic artistry and sophisticated readings solve the discrepancy. Positing that “one day” in biblical language corresponds to millennia in our modern terminology does not change the fact that the order of creation spoken about in Genesis I, for instance, that all plant life is said to be created before the entirety of all animal life, is wholly inconsistent with a scientific understanding of biology and evolution. It does not, moreover, solve the discrepancy that Genesis ignores the era of dinosaurs or the ice age. Yet it is precisely when we earnestly and unambiguously deny the historicity of Genesis, when we quit making apology for Genesis, that we come to understand its powerful and crucial message for humanity. Far from being a childish explanation of nature by a yet primitive and pre-scientific people; Genesis contains a spiritual message for all times, but perhaps most especially, it is a message crucial for humanity as it enters the twenty-first century.
Above all else, Genesis I appears to be a narrative which emphasizes the concept of “identity through separation.” A thing is created by being separated off from the rest of existence. It is then named, and proclaimed to be good:
“God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.”
“God said, ‘let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.’
“God called the expanse Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.”
“God said, ‘Let the water below the sky be gathered into one area, that the dry land may appear.’ and it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering of waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.” (Gen. 1.3-10)
Through the creation of seed-bearing plants, land animals, birds, fish, and humanity itself, the pattern is consistent. Just as the seas are separated from the formless void, and then from one another, and this allows for the creation of dry land and the oceans; so are plants separated off from the void, as are animals and humans. It is precisely by being separated that a being is made distinct, given an essence and an identity. And on the value of this process, the text is clear. The separation and division of the formless void into distinct entities is a good thing.
However, this is only half the story. Put more accurately, it is the half of the story which is written explicitly. But a pregnant silence pervades the entirety of Genesis I. What’s more, this pregnant silence is vitally important for securing the essential spiritual message of Genesis. In the tradition of Rashi , it is crucial to regard the Torah as black fire inscribed upon white fire. The truth to be gleaned from the ink is no more important than what is left unsaid on the page.
But what does this pregnant silence amount to? What is implied by the whole of Genesis I is the fundamental unity of all being. In this way we can see a strong parallel with Genesis II, the story of the Garden of Eden. In Genesis II humanity learns of its common ancestry. We are all the product of Adam and Eve, and thus we all share a common lineage. Yet this is merely a social unity. In Genesis I, the unity is even more fundamental and more deeply metaphysical. All humanity, and indeed, all the world is part of the same Substance. Every difference we see in the world, between man and animal, between genders, and between nations; these are not eternal divisions. At its genesis all creation was originally One.
In fact, if we think a bit harder we can see that not only was all creation a single unity; Rather Creator and Creation are fundamentally One, as well. The separation of light and darkness is not the first separation. It is only the first division which is explicitly mentioned. But we can extrapolate and look for the unstated implications within the text. The first opposition spoken of in Genesis I is not between light and dark, sea and land, or flora and fauna. Rather, the first dualism mentioned is that between God and the World. “…the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water…” (Gen. 1.1)
It is evident that the very first separation is really between Spirit and Matter. Therefore, we can extrapolate further back and, following the same pattern of the enfolding, posit that before the first word of Genesis there was one Being, prior to spirit and matter, prior to the division of Creator and Creation. So, it may be that “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” But before this beginning there was a divine unity.
We see an affirmation of this notion within the Kabbalistic tradition of Tzimtzum. God creates the world and its apparent distinctness and independence by His drawing back, His self limitation, or put another way, His division of Himself from the world. And this suggests again, that the original position is one of unity; it is one of absolute identity of God and Nature.
What is the import of this spiritual message? Again, I would suggest a parallel between Genesis I and Genesis II. In Genesis II humanity is cast out of the garden. Adam tastes the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Innocence is lost through the acquisition of the understanding; and with the loss of innocence, paradise is lost as well. Yet, it is just this casting out which frames the rest of the Bible. There is an imperative to return to the garden and thus communion with God. The casting out of Eden meant an estrangement of humanity from God just as our own prenatal development, both physical and intellectual, meant a first estrangement from our mothers. It is the pains of labor, accompanied by the first cries of infancy, which deliver the baby out of a blissful womb. Yet we are cast out by the very necessity of our own progressive development. And this development, of course, is good. At the same time, however, we are called to return on a higher plane. The rest of the Bible, the floods, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jacob’s wrestling with his angel, is the account of this struggle to find a way back to Eden, the Tree of Life, and unity with God. As matured individuals we are called back, as well, to communion with our fellow human beings. Yet it is not a return to the womb and a blind, blissful ignorance. It is not a return to passive dependence, but rather a new relationship of equality and community.
The fundamental message is the same in Genesis I, albeit far more radical. The fact that all identity is the result of division, the fact that the separation of Spirit and Matter, God and the Word is what constitutes our present existence strongly implies that salvation means a return to the unity before this separation. Just as in Genesis II, the narrative sets us up for a return to unity, but not the amorphous unity of the unformed void. Instead, it is a unity informed by the progress of creation and of humanity. Only in returning to this position of unity can we commune with God, that is, regain our collective identity with God.
It is thus plain that compassion, if this is to be understood as identification with the other, is both the path to and effect of communion with God. We cannot overcome the divisions of creation without identifying with those we take to be distinct form ourselves. Yet, full communion with God just is the realization of this fundamental unity. Compassion is the path to beatitude and salvation, but beatitude and salvation just is the attainment of a state of compassion.
However compassion without a plan and without action is meaningless. In this world, under the present material conditions, compassion must be understood to mean eliminating the contradictions within society which still separate us. We are structurally separated by class antagonisms and by national boundaries. The fight for socialism, the abolition of both classes and nation states, is the material requirement for the fulfillment of an ethical and spiritual imperative.
Just like the return anticipated in Genesis I, the abolition of classes and nation states does not mean a return to the unformed void. That is, it does not mean a return to the “state of nature,” to a nomadic life which is primitive and thus prior to capitalism and national sovereignty. We cannot, and should not, go back. Rather, it is a progressive return. We aim at a return to our innate and natural unity but on a higher and more dynamic level. Socialism, the harnessing of human labor, ingenuity, and creativity for the greatest good, is that progressive return.
Landon Frim, Faith and Socialism Commission Chair
